Dave Molter

Plight of the living dead

Published Dec 6, 2012 at 6:00 am
(Updated Dec 6, 2012 at 12:03 am)

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As I reported earlier this year, the world is scheduled to end – again – on Dec. 21. This is according to the Mayan calendar, which also predicted the Pirates would finish under .500 again this year. What more proof do we need?

Most people probably dread the end of the world. I, however, am actually glad it’s coming. Why? Because it will both render moot the Fiscal Cliff and put an end to Republican whining over Barack Obama’s re-election.

Till then I had planned to romp outdoors as never before, taking advantage of the springlike weather and the great pre-End of the World Doorbuster sales. However, a news item has made me think we may all be better off ensconced indoors for the next two weeks.

According to FBI data, background checks for gun purchases on Black Friday rose 20 percent from the same day in 2011. Well, Obama’s re-election probably accounts for some of that. But in an interview on KIRO-FM in Seattle, Dave Workman, senior editor at TheGunMag.com, said part of the reason for the increase is fear of zombies.

“A lot of people appear to be really enthralled by this,” Workman said. “I’ve seen lines of zombie targets. I know one or two ammunition companies have introduced boxes, lines of cartridges they called zombie cartridges, shotgun shells and rifle shells.”

One line of shells has a picture of a zombie on the box. Sure, sales are brisk: look what having a picture of the undead on the box did for the Frankenberry and Count Chocula cereals.

So I’m staying inside till Dec. 21. I don’t want to miss the End of the World because I was outside at 7 a.m. Dec. 20, staggering to the car from an abundance of alcohol or a dearth of caffeine, and had my head blown off by a neighborhood Zombie Watch volunteer. You laugh, but you don’t live in southern Allegheny County.

Perhaps you thought we would be safe from this furor. After all, in June the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta released a statement saying that the center “does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).” But people aren’t buying it, probably because in all the end-of-the-world scenarios I’ve read about or seen on film, the government always lies.

And then there’s that AMC show “The Walking Dead.” From what I’ve seen, the real zombies in that series are the lead actors. Most of them apparently went to the Charlton Heston Damn Dirty Ape Academy of Using One Facial Expression to Indicate Anger, Fear and Love. But viewers apparently think it’s a documentary. It worked for Orson Welles in 1938.

People are really zonked about zombies. “Zombies” has become the third most-popular search term on Google. In May, Miami police shot a man who was eating the face of a man he had attacked. A bit later, an engineering student in Maryland allegedly stabbed a man to death, then ate his heart and brain.

Hold on there just a darn minute, Dave, you say. Those people were alive! They were cannibals, not zombies! And you’d be right. But an NRA consumer panel gave Cannibal Ammo a thumbs down, and marketing’s the name of the game.

In any case, should the world fail to end Dec. 21, allowing the Fiscal Cliff to engender the Zombie Apocalypse, we needn’t worry even if the people buying anti-undead ammo run out of slugs.